The Inside Story of the Most Incredible Video Game No One Has Played

Sandcastle Builder is one of the most compelling, rewarding, and unique video games I’ve ever experienced. It is very close to earning a spot on my favorite games of all time short list.

But I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone else.

For every brilliant bit of game design, there is a menu that is almost impossible to navigate. For every clever way to keep players from progressing too quickly, there is a typo. For every moment that you experience a rush of newfound power, there is a moment where you’ll lose everything and have no idea why.

It’s a deeply flawed, possibly brilliant game experience. I’ve never played anything like it. And it was built just to amuse a few dozen friends.

The One True Comic

Let’s back up - to explain what Sandcastle Builder is and why it’s so special, we first need to talk about a forum thread, and the deeply geeky webcomic titled xkcd that spawned it.

xkcd is a long-running online comic strip authored by Randall Munroe. The site’s tagline describes it as a comic about “technology, science, mathematics, and relationships.” Punchlines are often obscure, requiring advanced knowledge of computer science, philosophy, and any number of other hard or soft sciences. But there’s plenty of wry humor found within xkcd strips that broader audiences can appreciate, as well:

Wikipedian Protester

A New CAPTCHA Approach

Most xkcd comics feature simple faceless stick figures. But every once in a while Munroe unleashes, without warning, a “Mega Comic.” It’s through these massive projects that most people were probably first exposed to the series. Example include the map of the Internet, a money chart that breaks down where almost all the cash in circulation in the entire world is located, a chart of ocean and lake depth, and a massive, easter-egg filled scene that’s explorable by clicking and dragging.

But the most impressive, important, and notable of all the xkcd mega-projects is simply titled “Time.” The comic initially appeared in March 2013. It featured a stick figure man and woman staring off into the distance.

Time

But then, something interesting happened.

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30 minutes later, the image changed.

30 minutes later, the image changed. Not dramatically. But it changed, nonetheless. The stick figures had moved. 30 minutes later, the picture changed again. In fact, a new slide appeared every 30 minutes (later switching to every hour). Eventually xkcd fans figured out that the images fit together in a kind of flipbook-style stop-motion animation, only it was playing out in ultra slow motion. After a day or two, the man and woman in the comic began building sandcastles!

Over the course of 123 days, a total of 3,099 unique images would appear, telling a complex story of rising sea levels, lost civilizations, and adventure. It had all been meticulously planned by Munroe. Detailed hints, most notably a field of stars appearing late in the comic’s life, provided clues about what was actually happening, and what it all meant.

In August 2014 Munroe won a Hugo award for Time, in the Best Graphic Story category.

The One True Topic

xkcd has an official forum where fans can discuss each new comic, as well as other topics like science news, games, computers, and so-on. “Time” received a forum topic like every other comic. Understably, fans were initially confused, or indifferent. “I can't tell if Randall is trying to be deep, or just trying to take a day off work,” forum member Alsadius muses on page one.

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I can't tell if Randall is trying to be deep, or just trying to take a day off work.

Members noticed the comic was updating and changing, and they immediately began trying to solve the mystery. How quickly are the pictures changing? Is it Javascript? Does refreshing have an effect? Where should we save and archive the previous images, so we don't lose them? Can we create a gif of all the images to date?

There was nothing to do but wait for more pictures. And speculate. And talk to one another.

The Time forum topic grew larger and larger as the hours turned into days, and then weeks. Users would check in after waking up, at first to see the new slides of the Time comic they had missed, and the fresh speculation their appearance spawned.

But as time passed, members would instead check in catch up with their friends. The users trying to solve the mystery grew close to one another, and in true internet fashion, they developed their own in-jokes. The Time forum thread became a sub-community, complete with its own complex culture. The forum thread is still going strong, more than a year after Time’s conclusion. The single thread currently has more than 87,000 posts.

The all-important field of stars.

“

The Time forum thread became a sub-community, complete with its own complex culture.

Posters in the Time thread developed their own lingo. A user was “ninja’d” if someone else posted the latest picture a split-second before they could. The fresh Time slides themselves became known as newpix. A “Newpix Bot” was later created to automatically post new slides as they went live, and users would compete to see if they could “Ninja” the bot itself, posting the image first. The ONG, derived from the sound “Gong” or “Bong,” became the term used for the appearance of a new slide. A user was a “goat” if they were unlucky enough to post the final message on a page. Members signing off for the night would “coma” instead of go to sleep. And so-on.

The list of in-jokes and self-references grew and grew. The comic itself became known as the OTC (One True Comic), with the thread designated the OTT (one true thread). References began to spill out from the thread itself. Members made fan art, parodies, and games, including a notable Time-flavored take on 2048.